Posted
by
EditorDavid
on Saturday August 13, 2016 @07:34PM
from the voting-twice-for-$15 dept.

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CBS News:
For the hackers at Symantec Security Response, Election Day results could be manipulated by an affordable device you can find online. "I can insert it, and then it resets the card, and now I'm able to vote again," said Brian Varner, a principle researcher at Symantec, demonstrating the device...

Symantec Security Response director Kevin Haley said elections can also be hacked by breaking into the machines after the votes are collected. "The results go from that machine into a piece of electronics that takes it to the central counting place," Haley said. "That data is not encrypted and that's vulnerable for manipulation."
40 states are using a voting technology that's at least 10 years old, according to the article. And while one of America's national election official argues that "there are paper trails everywhere," CBS reports that only 60% of states conduct routine audits of their paper trails, while "not all states even have paper records, like in some parts of swing states Virginia and Pennsylvania, which experts say could be devastating."

Trump is actually evidence against your claim. The establishment and lobbyists are terrified of him, and rightly so- he's an egomaniacal, xenophobic megalomaniac with a fuse the size of his tiny, tiny fingers. They tried everything they could to derail him, but he has tapped into the ugly side of American populism. Rage, fear, and authoritarianism have beaten the choice candidates of the monied elite.
While I don't disagree that money in politics is a huge problem, I do disagree that voting is futile... but it only works with an educated, engaged populace.

I swear, some people have the memory of mayflies. The voting machine debacle has been with us for almost 20 years now. They've been proven to be trivially hackable, poorly documented, and lacking significant paper trails in MANY different jurisdictions for ages, now. Suddenly Trump mentions it, and it's this partisan issue? How many people here are so young that they don't remember the blatant corruption surrounding Diebold?

I've never heard of a single person who was unable to buy alcohol because the requirements to get a photo id were too onerous. And yet, every year, we hear these sob stories about people who are too old/poor/dumb/whatever to get a photo id by November. I'm not buying it.

The only reason anyone would oppose voter id laws is if they are directly interested in rigging elections.

And yet, the same people who claim voting fraud is taking place which is why these laws are needed, steadfastly and adamantly refuse to require a verifiable and auditable paper trail to make sure the votes which are cast are properly recorded.

Time and again when the subject of vote verification is brought these same people use the excuse, "It's a computer. They don't make mistakes."

Well how do you know they don't make mistakes if you don't have a process in place to check if votes are being recorded?

I am a poll worker in Virginia. From the very scant details on this particular hack, the apparent claim is that you can vote more than once by "resetting" the machine while in the booth and not touching any equipment. Well, if it is even technically possible to pull this off, within an hour we'd know that the votes in that precinct were off, because we do an hourly audit of the of the number of people who check in to vote vs. the number of votes that are cast. When we are off by even a count of 1 it is a major event, and triggers an immediate investigation. Any kind of mass attempt to defraud the count would be caught immediately. And, nearly 2 million people are eligible to vote in Virginia, so you'd have to pull off an enormous hack across multiple precincts. You'd most certainly wind up canceling the election, not swaying it.

Virginia does not use direct-recording voting machines any more, we use machine-counted paper ballots. We decertified all our direct-recording machines two elections ago when it was discovered that in a couple of precincts the wireless local area network between machines were running with default administrative passwords. The scanning equipment we use is not networkable, and it is sealed with numbered seals. I do not believe it is possible to even do the hack suggested by the article any more.

The explanation given above is precisely what I experienced when I voted in the recent primaries. I'm a tech nerd in the security field and I had been disappointed that, in the past, 100% electronic voting was used - at least at my precinct.

This year I was amused and also encouraged by the fact that the ballot was paper. At least there is a physical piece of proof that can't be remotely destroyed by a would be hacker.

There is an electronic reader machine that accepts my own ballot that I

Thanks for the link to Appel's blog, that is pretty interesting. The seals we use in Virginia are not adhesive, they are pull-tight plastic that go through two physical loops. We seal the compartment to the flash drive on the scanner, the case on the scanner, and the locking rails that connect the scanner to the top of the ballot box. But, as Appel points out, any time you are leaving equipment unattended, you run the risk of someone gaining access to the machine, defeating the seal, and making mischief. It

Their affection for the electric chair and more recently poison injection executions over the old, and more reliable means of execution, hanging, are further examples of this. The result is that their democratic process IS at risk.

Millions of people vote at once, and the results have to be counted, certified, and then shared with the national media within hours. Machine-counting is the only way to do that. Would you trust human counters to count millions of pieces of paper reliably? I wouldn't. People are terrible at repetitive tasks. But ANY machine can be hacked. The scanners of course have source code, and operating systems with drivers and all the rest of the threat surfaces of any general-use computer. In Virginia, the scanners

Human counters can do it reliably enough and fast enough. If the result is within a certain percentage (0.1% or 0.5%) then an automatic recount is performed. Plus because the paper ballots are kept any candidate can request for a recount to be performed with a valid reason. And as been pointed out a representative from each party is allowed to be present to view the vote counting to ensure that it is done fairly.

Using a scanner to just count the results of paper ballots is still risky but it is very easy to

"40 states are using a voting technology that's at least 10 years old"

I assume that would include paper ballots that are, unlike electronic voting machines, independently auditable should there be questions about the integrity of the voting process. Why, exactly, is that something that needs to be fixed with a probably flawed modern technology?

The left isn't trying to eliminate voter registration laws and you know it. They're just trying to stop the right from making the process more difficult to qualify for than a driver's license. Remember, we actually want more people to vote, not less, to have more certainty of a fair voting outcome. Or is that the part you're opposed to, the part where you're forced to allow everyone to vote even if they have brown skin and don't go to your church?

Implying someone is a racist simply because they hold an opposing view comes across as an opinion you made because you've been programmed to think that is a valid argument for wanting reassurance that the individual voting is actually they person they say they are. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a bigot.

I didn't imply it, I flat out accused you of it. Then you proved me right by spending your sockpuppet mod points on me then quickly replied 4 times anonymously with equally absurd attempts to distract from the fact I just caught you in your own logical trap, bigot.

It's getting pretty bad. My karma has taken a beating. Simply put, Slashdot is the Donald Trump Forum, and if you're not advocating for him to be president and demanding imprisonment for Clinton, you're going to pay. I'm going to be honest, after being here since 2003, I'm just about ready to leave simply because mod points are being handed out to some of the most regressive people around, the very same kind of people that endlessly whine about how they're being censored for their views.

In fact, I'm not even sure why I'm here now. This place sucks, and not because of new owners or advertising, but simply because it has become a den of libertarian reactionaries who hate everything and everyone.

Simply put, Slashdot is the Donald Trump Forum, and if you're not advocating for him to be president and demanding imprisonment for Clinton, you're going to pay. I'm going to be honest, after being here since 2003, I'm just about ready to leave simply because mod points are being handed out to some of the most regressive people around, the very same kind of people that endlessly whine about how they're being censored for their views.

I actually keep track of the sentiment on Slashdot, both from the responses to my posts and general mood for certain topics. One topic I keep track of is the Clinton/Trump thing.

Firstly, don't feel like you need to leave because of the Trump/Clinton thing. In prior presidential election years, Slashdot goes to hell starting about 6 weeks before the election, and becomes unbearably dumb about 2 weeks before. Partisan sock puppets from both camps do nothing but carp and snipe and insult anyone who tries to post a political view.

It's happened before, and it's happening right now as well.

It's worse this year, probably a combination of a) this particular election is especially contentious, b) a lot of people are hurting and want to see change(*), and c) internet attendance is higher now than it was 4 or 8 years ago (and will probably be even higher 4 years from now).

Whiplash asked for suggestions when he took over, and I mentioned this specific point in a response.

Secondly, I monitor my own style and set goals for my posts. I'm currently working controversial posts, and this fits in well with my support of Trump.

What I've found is that all of the posts on either side are simple blind insults. Clinton is dirty and corrupt, Trump is a racist and bigot, there's not much else to see here. I've even called out the readership, asking for any *rational* reason to vote for Clinton over Trump (my particular choice - it would work as well the other way). No one has ever put forth a reasonable and rational reason for one candidate over the other(**).

Thirdly, it's easy to get around the mod point system simply by posting actual content. Make an insightful post--a way of looking at things that make sense and that someone else may have missed--and back it up with some links.

I've found that there are enough people here who still appreciate an interesting point, than there are partisans who will automatically down-vote something they don't like. I know this because my own posts get voted up *and* down (yes, I monitor my posts over time), and the up votes always win out eventually. It sometimes takes a couple of hours, but it almost always happens.

I believe that there are more intelligent and mature people reading this forum than there are partisan hacks, but these same people aren't interested in getting involved(***), or are too busy with life, or don't like getting insulted.

Lastly, note that Trump has the support of a fair slice of American voters right now. You can claim that he doesn't have enough support to win, but that's not the point: if 30% of the electorate is pro Trump, you'll see a lot of support here. Just like there was for Sanders, just like there was for Romney.

Take the trouble to think through your opinion (it helps if you come to your own opinion, rather than use someone else's (****)), post links to support your position, and don't insult and snipe people.

When you do this, the mature and honest readers will support you.

(*) In prior elections, both D and R were still "more of the same".(**) One anonymous exception, I tried to encourage them to get an account and continue, and haven't heard from them since.(***) I want to improve my public writing skills, and I use Slashdot as my practice range.(****) Years ago I saw a clip of Christopher Hitchens, who comes to his own views on things, and it really stuck with me.

What I've found is that all of the posts on either side are simple blind insults. Clinton is dirty and corrupt, Trump is a racist and bigot, there's not much else to see here. I've even called out the readership, asking for any *rational* reason to vote for Clinton over Trump (my particular choice - it would work as well the other way). No one has ever put forth a reasonable and rational reason for one candidate over the other(**).

Well Clinton IS corrupt and Trump IS a racist. But alright, here you go buddy.

Reasons to vote for Clinton over Trump.

1) Clinton more or less follows the democrat party platform. Anyone who is historically a democrat or otherwise shares the political views of democrats will more or less agree with her stance on most issues.

2) Trump does not follow the republican party platform. Anyone who is historically a republican or

You're upset because you're used to frequenting the news networks owned by the globalist oligarchs who want Hillary to be president so that she can be a good little puppet for them and further their covetous goals. Those networks program their viewers into thinking Trump=bad, Hillary=good. They suppress negative news about Hillary while telling half-truths and outright lies about Trump. You're used to having your views reassured and validated by these news outlets and you've come to think that those views a

The poll results [slashdot.org] disagree with you: Slashdot users have a significant preference for Clinton (33%), with Trump in second place (21%) leading slightly over Johnson (15%).

If a forum in which Trump supporters constitute a significant minority seems to you to be "the Donald Trump Forum", perhaps the issue may be your own perception? Are you sheltered from opposing political viewpoints in your day-to-day life?

How is asking for ANY type of picture ID harder than getting a driver's license?

Now you have a bunch of activist judges making legal leaps and declaring Voter ID illegal not because it's against the Constitution, but because it "unfairly affects minorities". Minorities are apparently more poor and more incompetent than the average citizen, so it's unfair of them to have to prove their identity. This is the Liberal argument.

In my state we have vote by mail and I don't get sent a ballot unless I'm registered under my correct address. My ID is my signature on the outside of the ballot envelope which gets compared to my signature on my registration. It a system that works well.

The signature is not on my ballot but on the outside of the envelope containing my ballot. Once the signature is validated the ballot is separated from the envelope. I watched the process once so I'm confident the comparisons are being done. If they can't validate your signature they send you a notification and you have a few days to come down and verify that it is correct.

Your right to vote comes from the fact that you are a citizen of the United States, and not from the possession of any type of ID. If you couple the possession of an ID to the right to vote, then the ID has to be provided to every citizen of the United States without any further restrictions. The possession of the ID can not be a priviledge, otherwise it would run afoul the right to vote.

A driver's license gives you the priviledge to drive. It is voluntary, no one can be forced to get one. I didn't have a

Just go compulsory voting. If you are on the register you must vote. If you want to argue that you should have the right to not vote then turn up, get your name crossed off and draw a giant dick and balls on the ballot sheet.

If you want to have electronic voting have an option that says "I do not wish to vote, so register my vote as informal, this means my vote will not count" and make them hit through 5 are you sures.

If everyone has to vote it makes impersonating someone else really really hard as those

Just go compulsory voting. If you are on the register you must vote. If you want to argue that you should have the right to not vote then turn up, get your name crossed off and draw a giant dick and balls on the ballot sheet.

If you want to have electronic voting have an option that says "I do not wish to vote, so register my vote as informal, this means my vote will not count" and make them hit through 5 are you sures.

If everyone has to vote it makes impersonating someone else really really hard as those people have to vote as well. As soon as the same person gets marked off you have problems.

And free transport to the polling station for the compulsory voting is provided, right?

The AEC, Australian Electoral Commission, is held at arms length from the ruling party government. It requires an act of parliament to change any of the rules and given the make-up of the Australian government it would be very difficult for one party to pass rules that favour them over the other.

In addition there is a 3 person body which consists of either a current or retired federal judge, a statistician and the current head of the AEC. They are charged with the management of the process and oversight o

The AEC, Australian Electoral Commission, is held at arms length from the ruling party government. It requires an act of parliament to change any of the rules and given the make-up of the Australian government it would be very difficult for one party to pass rules that favour them over the other.

In addition there is a 3 person body which consists of either a current or retired federal judge, a statistician and the current head of the AEC. They are charged with the management of the process and oversight of the AEC to ensure accuracy of the election.

It's worth noting though that there is a huge difference in attitude between Australia and the US at election time. Australia doesn't have the rallies or the level of energy that the US has around an election. I just can't imagine people trying to block others from voting here.

Yeah sorry, you put all that work into your response but I wasn't thinking about how its done in Aussie, rather how it might be implemented in the USA.

I don't think there is a Republican party in Aus who might want to stop blacks and hispanics from voting

No I understood where you were coming from. In my head I was thinking about how hard it would be to implement in the US because so much of what politics appears to be, from the outside looking in, is getting people to vote rather than convincing them to vote a certain way.

You would have to convince both parties that 95% voter turn out wouldn't skew the results in favour of one over the other. Which is basically impossible.

I thought you might be interested in the structure though and how it can be possible

Mobile pollingAEC mobile polling teams visit many electors who are not able to get to a polling place. Mobile polling facilities are set up in some hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and remote areas of Australia. Mobile polling is carried out around Australia prior to election day and on election day.

I dunno. I grew up with compulsory voting. It is made extremely easy, huge number of polling stations, postal voting, declaratory voting in other electorates. Ring the AEC and they will send someone to your house to help you vote, or if you are in a nursing home they come to you so you can vote. We also don't disenfranchise prisoners so they get the votes counted in prison too.

Because it is the entire electoral role every time there is never any shocks due to higher than expected turn out. I think 10 m

It's because he's an idiot like Bush was and he doesn't have the support the approved candidates have. He also has to support the RNC official platform in order to be an RNC candidate and thus a lot of his platform (the Mexican wall stuff and taxes) isn't actually his.

Everything that Clinton says (if she even says it) has gone through a team of lawyers and media personnel. The problem is the media and the powers that be got surprised by Trump. Now they're broadening everything he says and make it sound wors

There was a story that looked a democrat primary voting. States WITH a paper trail voted 51-49 in favor of bernie sanders, States WITHOUT paper trail voted 65-35 in favor of clinton. Pretty massive gap considering if you ask anyone with common sense, but then add to fact states they can review and verify results vs states you can't.

Ha, no.
What Trump has suggested is that the *only* way he could lose is due to voter fraud (a problem that is statistically nonexistent). That's dangerous rhetoric at best; it delegitimizes the process (but only if he loses). It's not as if Trump has any actual information on planned fraud or evidence t support his assertions. He's merely covering his ass, because in his mind he *can't* legitimately lose.
And yes, the process of voting should be easy and painless for everyone entitled to vote. That's the basis of a functional democracy.

"Step 4: Recruit group of persons who are willing to accept cash and keep their mouths shut to get driven around all day and be told who to vote for."

HAH! Unlikely!

"Three people may keep a secret if two are dead" - Benny Franklin.

People talk. They love to talk and tell stories. They hate being told to shut up, even for money. It usually has to be a lot of money for them to shut up, especially when it comes to a federal crime and they are spotted. They will roll over on you and your scheme to stay out o

Trump's statements are meant to undermine your democracy by priming an angry electorate to believe - note the word "believe" - that all polls in favour of Clinton are dishonest. Stop and think about the conspiracy required to falsify all polls. He doesn't appear to care about the consequences to the country. If can't win, let it burn, appears to be the philosophy of that campaign.

You've been misinformed by the media or are intentionally misstating the candidate. Trump's statement was only about certain areas in Pennsylvania. His call to have neutral observers at poll locations, a thing the DNC and the UN has itself suggested during BOTH of Obama's elections in the same areas, is now being met with threats to arrest those observers.

The US has such large voting problems the UN AND the DNC has called for observers and those observers are now being threatened with arrest.

The red team complains about voter fraud and the blue team complains about voter suppression. They're both rigging the election as far as I'm concerned and that just has to balance itself out. Don't whine about losing before you lose though, I don't know what that's supposed to accomplish.

As in many other cases, Drumpf is a raging hypocrite. In the real world, vote fraud is a republican thing. And they're not even subtle about it. One of their operatives, the CEO of Diebold, manufacturer of many of the voting machines in the US, went so far as to openly state his intention to divert votes to the republicans:

Where I come from ID is mandatory... you cannot exist here w/o it. (Sweden) You get a personal identity number when you are born. Which makes voting simple.
Voting also always takes place on Sundays, when working people are free, and we don't have electronic voting systems because that would be really bad...

1) You should have an ID, and it should be super easy to get it.
2) You should have to prove your identity when voting
3) You should not have to take a day of in order to vote.
4) Electronic voting should never be allowed, since it can always be hacked. Voting over internet is even worse, since then people can buy votes, or coerce others to vote against their will.

International observers occasional show up in the US for elections, and they are astounded by how weak and untrustworthy our elections are. No ID required? No marking of hands or fingers? Ballots left alone, but still counted?

It's embarrassing when the Somali elections were more robust than the US ones.

1) The Soviets demanding to see papers to travel made Americans highly skeptical of government required ID.2) All audits of US elections have shown voter fraud to be nearly non-existent.3) There is no day of the year when nobody works. Putting it on Sunday screws people who work weekends.4) Electronic voting can be carefully audited to confirm no extra votes were registered, no strange patterns exist, and the results can be compared to exit polls. Like #2, despite a lot of fear mongering, there's no evidenc

You must prove your identity to vote. You can prove your identity in three ways:1. Be known by the voice receiver2. Show ID document3. Any other person can vouch for your identity. Then the one who vouches show his ID. The social security number of the person who vouches written

Everyone, left, right, up, or down, was switching to electronic voting after the hanging chad embarrasment. It's not a partisan issue, and if you think only the left is stealing votes then you're blind to the people on the other side stealing them too.

Is it an outrage? Did he say something besides if he doesn't win it's because the system is rigged? I must have missed the "outrage" on that one. Maybe on some left-wing blog it's an "outrage", but Trump, in my opinion, just looks silly saying that. Some of his supporters will no doubt be outraged when he loses. I believe he's pre-making excuses for it.

Heads I win. Tails, you cheated.

And it seems to resonate well with you since you're already complaining that people are saying it's an outrage w

It doesn't scale, and every voter would need a private encryption key that can't leak....

I'm just happy a security company has finally been able to get one of these machines to demonstrate how bad it is. Most of the more major but less visible outside of the field researchers have been screaming for a decade that there are obvious flaws but haven't been able to get their hands on the machines to prove them.

The only thing, it had to be Symantec, really... The one company that is too large for it's own good, uses unnecessary scare tactics to fleece customers and has suffered it's own fair share of security failures. Only good thing I see with Symantec doing it is maybe they are well known enough that the powers that be might take note.

Why don't you correctly attribute your quotes? The attribution to Mark Twain is spurious [snopes.com], and anyone familiar with his style and 19th-century American English in general could sense that something was off in calling this a Twain quotation.